


All the Pens That Ever Poets Held

by Dorothy Marley (dmarley)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Episode Related, M/M, Podfic Available, Romance, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-08-30
Updated: 2000-08-30
Packaged: 2017-10-02 21:34:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dmarley/pseuds/Dorothy%20Marley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While stranded on another planet, Jack O'Neill thinks about home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Pens That Ever Poets Held

**Author's Note:**

> [Download the podfic of "All the Pens That Ever Poets Held"](http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JDL4UBJU) (20:07) 6.91 MB

The thing that Jack missed most was the sound of Daniel's pen. Every night, for the last six months, the faint slur of ball-point over paper had been a constant, the sound more often than not the last thing he heard before falling asleep. Lying there in the big, soft bed, being with Daniel, sleeping next to him, waking up with him, it was all wrapped up in that one little--very irritating--sound. And now it was gone, and Jack was lying on the ground billions of miles away from Earth, trying to sleep, knowing he should sleep, but instead lying awake and wishing like anything that he had Daniel beside him.

But Daniel wasn't here. His sudden appendicitis had grounded him, darn near for good, and it had been up to the other three-quarters of SG-1 to board Thor's ship and try to save him, and Earth. They'd all managed to escape the destruction of the ship, and with any luck it had crashed as planned and gotten rid of every last one of those damned Replicators. But as escape plans went, sitting here on their butts and hoping to god that the SGC was right now furiously working to get the Beta Gate up and running lacked a certain . . . certainty.

On the positive side, Jack could tell himself that he'd been in worse situations. Edora leaped to mind. At least here he had Carter and Teal'c for company. Plus, the Asgard who had picked up Thor knew where they were, and maybe they could swing a rescue if the Beta Gate turned out to be a bust. _Just keep those positive thoughts coming, Jack._

Trying to follow his own advice, Jack turned over again and stared up at the sky, picking out the crescent sapphire brilliance of the planet's largest moon overhead. It was a beautiful night, quiet and peaceful, the stars like a handful of scattered diamonds, but it wasn't any good. Jack wasn't in the mood to enjoy it. Who was he kidding, anyway? The whole situation sucked, and it would continue to suck until they got back to Earth and Jack could see with his own eyes that Daniel had made it through okay. Nothing was going to be right again until he was back with Daniel, until he had the chance to grumble about Daniel's journal again, or fall asleep with Daniel's elbow propped on his back, or wake up and decide it was time to distract Daniel from his writing.

The first couple of nights here, Jack had tried to enjoy the silence, make up for missing Daniel by letting the peace and quiet take over. But before long, all the little nocturnal sounds had started to creep in. The chirp of whatever passed for crickets on this planet, the splash of scavengers scooping fish--well, fish-like things, anyway--from the stream nearby, even the distant bellows from the lumbering herds they'd spotted on their first reconnaissance. Jack found himself jerking awake with each little noise, until every shift of his body on the ground, every soft hiss of the fire, even the almost noiseless rustles as Carter or Teal'c turned over on the other side of the fire were like gunshots to his straining ears. By that logic, the scratch of Daniel's pen should have been on the level of the noise of a gravel truck, but Jack knew that if he could just hear it once, have one instant of that familiar distraction, then the whole pack of Replicators could darn well come down here and have a swap meet and he'd drop off like a stone.

\-----

It annoyed Jack at first. Beds were for sleeping and for nooky, not for work, and it was irritating to crawl in on a chilly night and have nothing better to snuggle up to than a jiggling arm and a hard-edged journal. He'd tried curling up pointedly with his back to Daniel, but that lasted only as long as it took him to wake up one night and find Daniel using his shoulder as an impromptu desk. That was the last straw.

"Daniel," he mumbled sleepily. "You know, there's this great new invention. It's called a computer."

"Very funny, Jack," Daniel muttered back, still writing. Exasperated, Jack flipped over to face him.

"I'm serious. You know I take great pride in my reputation as the technophobe. You're stealing my thunder with all this scribbling."

As far as he could tell, Daniel didn't miss a beat. "This isn't work. This is my journal."

"I know that. And it wouldn't be easier to keep it on the computer? You type, what, two thousand words a minute?"

"A hundred. And yes, it would be easier." Daniel's brow furrowed, his lips pursing as he concentrated on the words forming in front of him. "But it wouldn't be the same."

To that, Jack had no immediate reply. There'd been an edge to that last reply, a warning in Daniel's tone that Jack was treading into dangerous territory. Jack couldn't imagine how, it was just a stupid diary, for crying out loud. Whatever it was, though, Jack had already stumbled into it, put his foot squarely into one of those hidden quagmires that always seemed to lurk in the territory of any relationship. The kind of stuff, in other words, that he was definitely no good at.

"Is this a 'reminds you of home' thing?" he finally ventured, and got a brief, startled stare in response.

"Home?" Daniel said at last, as if he wasn't quite sure what the word meant, and after a moment it occurred to Jack that maybe "home" wasn't something that had happened much in Daniel's life. Not in the last few years, anyway. "You mean Abydos?" Daniel offered, and Jack shrugged.

"Yeah, I guess. I mean, you lived there for a year, right? Strange planet, no computers or anything, nothing to write with but . . ." Jack gestured helplessly. "You know."

After a moment, Daniel looked away, his expression unreadable. "No. It doesn't remind me of Abydos." He wrote a few more words. "It reminds me--" he started, then broke it off. "I've always done it this way," he said presently, a stubborn line forming along the planes of his jaw, "and if you'll leave me alone long enough, I'll be done."

"Okay, sure." Jack rolled over, making a tactful--and tactical--retreat. Funny that they were still in that stage, after three years in nearly constant company still having to search out those boundaries, still having to test the borders of privacy and trust. _Give it time,_ Jack told himself, all too aware that he had his own boundaries, his own "No Trespassing" signs that even Daniel wasn't allowed to cross. Not yet.

Daniel wrote a while longer, then shut the journal and put it away, sliding it into its usual slot on the nightstand. The light switched off, and a moment later Daniel's body slid next to him, spooning up behind Jack, his warmth spreading over him in a soft wave of blissful, blessed comfort. Ah, yes. For this, Jack could put up with a little scribbling.

\-----

Jack turned over again on his bedroll, putting his back to the fire once again, seeking the heat that still soaked from the coals. Warm enough, but as a substitute for Daniel, it sucked. He'd definitely had enough of cold places in the last three years: Chulak, the Antarctic, that damn cryogenic tank in Hathor's base. He'd had nightmares about that for weeks, waking up feeling the cold still stabbing into his bones while the Goa'uld whispered sedition in his mind. But not since Daniel had been there. In the last few months, Jack's dreams had featured nothing more sinister than the occasional scenario of walking through a jungle of clinging vines, only to wake up and find Daniel wrapped around him like a second skin. Not so bad, that.

Okay, so it hadn't all been easy. They'd long ago established all the friendship stuff, the trust and loyalty that went along with saving one another's lives on a regular basis, taking for granted that the other would always be there. But this new stuff, this deeper stuff, that was harder.

Before, Jack could have given Daniel shit about the damn journal, made a crack, a joke, and Daniel would have given it right back, without showing, like he'd shown that night, how important it really was to him. That would have been that. Now, though, they were in those deeper waters, and they both had to find new ways to cross them.

\-----

The morning after he and Daniel talked about the journal, Jack woke up with the vague, uncomfortable certainty that he'd missed something, that he'd been given some test and failed it without even knowing. It was a feeling he knew all too well. Failing to listen, failing to speak, failing to understand, failing to explain. All the little tests that went along with marriage, and relationships . . . you'd think he'd know them by now. Apparently not.

Well, Jack might be a colonel, but he wasn't a mind reader, and he knew from experience that dragging personal information out of Dr. Daniel "I'll Talk About Anything But Myself" Jackson was a long and thankless task. But something told him that this was important, that last night he'd touched on a part of Daniel Jackson that he needed to understand. And the best way to pursue it, he decided, was to up and ask. He rolled over, reaching for the man beside him.

It actually took several moments for Jack to register that he was alone in the bed. His hand groped reflexively over the empty pillow, and his knuckles barked sharply against a hard corner, causing him to curse softly. Then his eyes focused on the object that had replaced Daniel's head on the pillow, and the first thing he saw was his own name. He read several words before it sank in what, exactly, he was reading, but by then it too late.

_I don't know why I didn't just tell Jack. Habit, I guess, keeping all those stories in here, writing them down to keep instead of sharing them. But it's a habit I'm finding hard to break._

I've always kept a journal, ever since I was a kid. My foster mother started me. I realize now that she probably did it to try to get me to open up, to talk about myself, to communicate with her, but at the time it didn't seem like that. She'd come into my room every night before I went to bed, and we'd talk about what I did that day, and then she'd wait while I wrote it down. She gave me a blank book and a pen, a real fountain pen, and taught me how to write with it. I was only eight, and I was still a little clumsy with it, but I could already read and write way above my grade and it wasn't long until I got the hang of it.

I miss that pen. I used it for years, always carried it with me. I finally lost it on a dig in Egypt, was almost buried alive myself when that tomb collapsed. Maybe hundreds of years from now some other archaeologist will dig it up again and theorize about the writing utensils of the ancient Egyptians.

After a while, she got me to write about other things in the journal. About my parents, and what happened to them. About school and the other kids, and even about what it was like living with her family. I showed her some of it, but I don't think she ever read anything but what I wanted her to see. She always told me that it was private, for me alone, and I believe that she respected that.

I always remembered what it felt like, sitting there tucked up in the bed with that book on my knees, writing until I was too tired to stay awake, until I could fall asleep. Jack's right, I could use a computer, but I know without even trying that it wouldn't be the same. It isn't just the act itself, putting my thoughts and actions into words. It's the sound of the pen on the paper, the feel of the book in my hands, the smell of the ink and the crackle of the pages as I turn them. It reminds me of that safe place, the smell and feel of the pages taking me back to that memory, to a time when all my problems and fears and worries could be written on a page, put down in black and white, and then closed and forgotten.

It was a lifesaver when I was younger, but now, as I've grown up, grown older, I wonder if it's also become a prop. It's so much easier, most of the time, to write it down here, to say all the things I want to say, but can't. That kind of thing takes practice, and I'm not very practiced at emoting to people. Even to Jack. How many times, after all, have I told Jack what he means to me? I'm sure he knows, but I've never said it, never spoken it out loud. Maybe I don't need to. But then, maybe I can't, maybe all I'm capable of is saying it here, putting it down silently on paper even while he's lying next to me, so close that I could tell him with a whisper. Somehow, here, on this page, it's easy to say what I could never say to him out loud. To say that I love him.

\-----

The fire was getting too hot, now, and Jack finally gave up on sleep, rolling out from under his jacket and climbing to his feet. He was stiff and sore, the shocks of the last few days combining with the hard ground to send his muscles into uncomfortable knots. Jack rolled his shoulders a few times, shaking out his arms as quietly as he could, and moved to the edge of the clearing, giving Teal'c a nod as he strolled past into the bushes.

It had taken him way too long to figure out that Daniel had left the journal there on purpose, that he hadn't somehow forgotten and left his private diary lying open on his pillow, carefully positioned so that it was almost certain to be the first thing Jack saw when he woke up. Jack had spent half the morning dealing with pangs of guilt, certain that he'd violated Daniel's privacy and on the verge of confessing as much when the facts suddenly sank in.

So he'd said nothing, let it go. Daniel still wrote every night, and every night Jack watched him, and listened, and waited for him to talk, to say something. Finally, after a week, it dawned on him that Daniel already had said something, that he'd done his part in trying to reach out, to communicate. Now, it was Jack's turn. All he'd had to do was figure out how the hell to go about it, and after another week, he'd hit on an idea.

\-----

Jack could hear Daniel rattling around in the bathroom, busying himself with brushing his teeth and undressing and puttering around. Jack was lying on his side, feigning sleep, when Daniel came back in, and he kept his eyes closed as Daniel moved around the room, looking and searching. After a moment, Daniel left, and Jack heard his steps recede down the hall, going first into the kitchen, then the living room, then back to the bedroom.

"Jack?" His voice was quiet, not loud enough to wake Jack if he'd truly been asleep. "Jack, have you seen my journal?"

Jack peeled open an eye. "Yeah," he said. "It's on your desk. I put it there."

"Oh." Daniel hesitated, then turned and left the room, muttering a belated, "Thanks."

When he'd gone, Jack turned over in the bed, deliberately facing away from the door, and waited. What he'd put there, in fact, was a new journal, soft-bound in smooth leather, the pages thick and crisp and creamy-white. On top of it he'd set a new fountain pen, sleek and glossily enameled, the fine gold nib still shiny and pristine. He'd left no note with it, no inscription in the journal, no box, no wrapping. He was simply trusting that the message--and the apology--was clear enough.

It took Daniel a long, long time to return, and when he did Jack faked a soft, genteel snore. Daniel's steps paused in the door. A moment later, though, the mattress shifted under his weight, and Jack kept his eyes closed as a warm, familiar presence settled into the bed next to him. There was a quiet, whispering sound, as of fingers caressing soft leather, then the faint, crisp rustle of thick paper. Jack heard Daniel uncap the pen, and then the nib started scratching over the page. Daniel wrote in silence for a time, then Jack heard, faint as the sound of the words being written, his voice say softly, "Thanks, Jack."

Jack turned over, hardly needing to fake sleep now, and lifted his face. Daniel's mouth brushed his softly, lingering for the briefest of moments, then he sat up and began writing again. Jack lay beside him for a while, listening, then closed his eyes and fell asleep.

\-----

Jack yawned wearily, rubbing a hand over his gritted eyelids as he saw the sky begin to lighten. He ached for sleep, but more than that, he hurt for not having Daniel beside him. God, if there was only some way for him to see him, to talk across the width of the galaxy that separated them. He'd be willing to talk about anything, spill his guts, discuss their feelings, anything, if only it meant that he could be with Daniel again.

From time to time over the next weeks he had found that journal lying open, on the kitchen table, on the couch, on Daniel's desk. He'd read what Daniel wanted him to read, no more, and every time had returned the book to him, saying nothing. It wasn't perfect, but it had been a start.

Hell of an irony. After all they'd done to try to speak to each other, after making the start to cross that huge distance between feeling the words and learning to say them, it seemed horribly unfair to be separated by something as piddly and insignificant as a few million miles. But this wasn't going to last forever. Tomorrow, they'd try dialing Earth again, and the next day, and the next. Jack wasn't about to give up now, not with Daniel waiting back there. They'd started something, and Jack was damned sure that nothing as trivial as the width of the galaxy was going to stop them from finishing it.

If all the pens that ever poets held  
Had fed the feeling of their masters' thoughts,   
And every sweetness that inspir'd their hearts,  
Their minds, and muses on admired themes;  
. . .  
Yet should there hover in their restless heads  
One thought, one grace, one wonder in the least,  
Which into words no virtue can digest.

\--Christopher Marlowe, _Tamburlaine the Great, Part One_

**Author's Note:**

> **Thanks** to Cassidy, Leviathan, Mia, and Tracey for beta-reading, and to the ladies and gents of the SG1 Tearoom and Slash-writers for comments and advice.
> 
> **Special Thanks** to mesnoo and Zvi, for more than invaluable suggestions that helped shape the final version of this story.


End file.
